Make India Asbestos Free

Journal of Ban Asbestos Network of India (BANI). Asbestos Free India campaign of BANI is inspired by trade union leader Purnendu Majumadar. It has been working for last 17 years. It works with peoples movements, doctors, researchers and activists besides trade unions, human rights, environmental, consumer and public health groups. BANI demands criminal liability for companies and medico-legal remedy for victims. For Details: krishnagreen@gmail.com

Tuesday, September 18, 2012

Canada yet to ban export of deadly fiber to India but has been forced to list white asbestos as hazardous substance

Press Statement

Canada yet to ban export of deadly fiber to India but has been forced to list white asbestos as hazardous substance

Ministries of Commerce and Rural Development must learn from Ministries of Labor, Chemicals, Environment, Health, Mines and Railways who are for phase out of asbestos

New Delhi, 18/9/2012: After Canadian government’s announcement that it will stop objecting to the listing of chrysotile asbestos (white asbestos) as a dangerous material under the U.N.’s Rotterdam Convention on exports of hazardous materials, Government of India and the State Governments are under an ethical and logical obligation, backed by indisputable scientific and medical evidence, to close down asbestos industry and stop the construction of asbestos plants in Bihar, Odisha and elsewhere in the country to protect the health of citizens, workers and their families. Ban Asbestos Network of India (BANI) and ToxicsWatch Alliance (TWA) welcome the Canadian announcement and encourages it to stop continued exports of Canadian asbestos to countries like India.

Canadian Industry Minister Christian Paradis announced that the Canadian government will no longer oppose global rules that restrict use and shipment of the substance and promised to invest up to $50 million to help the country's last remaining asbestos mining region, in Quebec's Eastern Townships, to diversify into other areas of activity. This movement towards asbestos free activity is a result of the political isolation being faced by the ruling Conservative Party which had previously blocked the chrysotile form of asbestos from being listed under the convention on three occasions, most recently at a summit in 2011 in Switzerland. The convention requires consensus of its members to list a substance; five other forms of asbestos are already listed as hazardous. The announcement was made on September 14, 2012.

This decision of the Canadian government after the meeting of John Baird, Foreign Minister of Canada with SM Krishna, Union Minister of External Affairs on September 12, 2012 assumes significance given the fact that it happened in the context of bilateral framework agreements like the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement, the Bilateral Investment Promotion and Protection Agreement and the Social Security Agreement besides agreements for mining etc. Earlier, it had emerged that Union Ministry of Commerce is unable to resist asbestos industry’s influence in public interest and desist from signing the "Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement" (CEPA) with Canada that allows the export of cancer causing Canadian asbestos to India. The New Democratic Party (NDP) of Canada, the official Opposition party has revealed the efforts of Canadian Prime Minister, Stephen Harper government to eliminate trade tariffs on exports of lethal Canadian asbestos to India. “It is a disgrace that the Harper government has opposed the global effort to ban this substance,” NDP said in a release dated December 5, 2011.

Disregarding the regressive influence of asbestos producers like Canada, China, Russia, Zimbabwe and Kazakhstan, Indian government should act to make South Asia and the India-Brazil- South Africa (IBSA) region countries asbestos free. Notably, South Africa has already banned asbestos and several States in Brazil too have banned it.

BANI and TWA recognize that Canadian government was forced by Quebec premier-elect Pauline Marois who has vowed to cancel a $58-million loan guarantee offered by the previous government to revive Canada’s only remaining asbestos mine which has created victims in the developing world countries.

Under the changed political situation, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper who is scheduled to visit India in November 2012 has now agreed to join global consensus that considers asbestos as a hazardous substance. In any case in the last UN meeting of Rotterdam Convention after India disassociated itself from Canadian government, it was facing isolation and belittling its own stature among the comity of nations through its hypocrisy on asbestos.

It is about time Indian government banned the domestic uses of asbestos and invested in removal of asbestos from public buildings such as legislative buildings, hospitals, schools, homes and workplaces.

The global public opinion and the domestic opinion is against asbestos business creating a political compulsion for both in Canada and India to read the red signal for the end of the chrysotile business and for prohibiting its import and export.

Unsuspecting citizens and workers in India have been forced to work with this hazardous substance whose dangers have been kept hidden from them.

The next logical step for Canada is to provide household income to victims of Canadian asbestos in India because it continued to export in full knowledge that it is likely to cause incurable lung diseases. Central and State Governments in India are also under a legal obligation to ensure that both occupational and non-occupational victims of asbestos exposure get legal and medical remedy.

Health Matters

Ban on Asbestos is a Must

A study in a peer-reviewed journal had earlier estimated that there could be more than 6,000 workers affected by asbestosis (an untreatable lung ailment) and another 600 suffering at the minimum from asbestosis-related lung cancer in India at present. Occupational cancer from asbestos, the disease caused by emissions at the work place, poses an increasingly serious health problem. But the subject has attracted relatively little attention from industry, labour, public health bodies or the medical profession. Asbestos is one of the single largest sources of occupational cancer. Indian polticians are acting as if they are bonded workers of asbestos industry.

World Trade Center, New York collapsed Thousands of tons of asbestos became airborne.

Back in 1981, there was research coming out that Asbestos was cancer causing and this ad was in rebuttal to that research touting the benefits of using Asbestos. The text over the Twin Towers states, "When the Fire Alarm Went Off, It Took Two Hours to Evacuate New York's World Trade Center." I do not need to remind anyone of the images of September 11th and this ad. The copy below the ad goes on to mention all of the places that Asbestos was used in the World Trade Center. I can not not think of all of the innocent victims in the area that were exposed to all of the dust, smoke and inherent asbestos that was in the air after the buildings collapsed. The cloud of smoke went across the entire city and potentially exposed hundreds of thousands of individuals to asbestos. Hopefully there can be a cure or treatment for Mesothelioma before all of these potential victims are diagnosed.

Ban Use of Asbestos Products

Apex Court allocates meagre compensation for asbetsos victims

In 1995, the Supreme Court of India fixed Rs 1 lakh compensation amount and identified National Institute of Occupational Health (NIOH) as the final authority to certify asbestosis cases. Compensations are given through the Employees State Insurance Corporation (ESIC). Two workers in Ahmedabad Electricity Company diagnosed as having asbestosis by NIOH have been compensated by Gujarat High Court. Twenty-five workers in asbestos jointing and packing industry at Mumbai were compensated by the Special medical board of ESIC. The court ruled that the industrial units must maintain a health record of every worker up to a minimum period of 40 years; insure workers under the Employees State Insurance Act or Workmen’s Compensation Act and give health coverage to every worker.

Asbestos Victims

Every day estimated 30 deaths in India is under way due to the ongoing trade and use of white asbestos. 'Asbestos' in Greek means 'indestructible'. Greeks called asbestos the 'magic mineral'. Asbestos is a generic term, referring usually to six kinds of naturally occuring mineral fibres. Of these six, three are used more commonly. Chrysotile is the most common, accounts for almost 90 per cent of the asbestos used in the industry, but it is not unusual to encounter Amosite or Crocidolite as well. Though Crocidolite asbestos is banned in India, it can still be found in old insulation material, old ships that come from other countries for wrecking in India. All types of asbestos tend to break into very tiny fibre, almost microscopic. In fact, some of them may be up to 700 times smaller than human hair. Because of their small size, once released into the air, they may stay suspended in the air for hours or even days. Asbestos fibres are virtually indestructible. They are resistant to chemicals and heat, and are very stable in the environment. They do not evaporate into air or dissolve in water, and they do not break down over time. Because of its high durability and with tensile strength asbestos has been widely used inconstruction and insulation materials - it has been used in over 3,000 different products. Where do we use it? In India, asbestos is used in manufacture of pressure and non pressure pipes used for water supply, sewage, irrigation and drainage system in urban and rural areas, asbestos textiles, laminated products, tape, gland packing, packing ropes, brake lining and jointing used in core sector industries such as automobile, heavy equipment, petro-chemicals, nuclear power plants, fertilizers, thermal power plants, transportation, defence.

Vladimir Putin government set up a panel of experts to give an opinion on a possible Russian asbestos ban. The panel’s report gave an impassioned defence of asbestos use. Dr Izmerov gave a presentation on "Chrysotile. Russian Experience in Occupational Health" at the International Conference on Chrysotile in Montreal during May 23 - 24, 2006. Russia exported 152, 820 MT of chrysotile asbestos to India in 2006.